Royal Mail will extend the opening hours of its Customer Service Points sited in delivery offices across the UK.

Royal Mail will introduce the new opening hours in a phased roll out across the UK starting this week.

The roll out is expected to be completed by late summer.

The move will see the majority of Royal Mail Customer Service Points open for longer with local opening times varying by the size of the delivery office and footfall.

The Argus: A Royal Mail Customer Service PointsA Royal Mail Customer Service Points

Some larger delivery offices (more than 500) will be open from 8am until 7pm on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday and from 8am until 8pm on a Thursday.

Some will open later on a Saturday (8am until 5pm) and some will open from 11am to 3pm on a Sunday.

Customers should visit the ‘Royal Mail Services near you’ webpage to check their local office opening hours.

These will be updated to reflect new opening hours as they are introduced at selected Customer Service Points.

Royal Mail will continue to monitor the impact of the new hours while working closely in line with government guidelines.

Antony Harvey, Commercial Director, Royal Mail said: “We are thrilled to see the return of longer opening hours at our Customer Service Points.

"As restrictions ease, we want to offer our customers greater levels of convenience as well as greater flexibility.

"Alongside this, we will continue to offer customers the option to arrange a free redelivery to their home, neighbour or nearest Post Office branch for collection at a more convenient time if they are not at home when an item is delivered”.

Royal Mail introduced shorter opening hours at its Customer Service Points earlier this year as customer demand for its collection service dropped during lockdown.

During the pandemic and associated lockdowns there was a much higher rate of first-time deliveries as most people were at home.

This meant that fewer people received one of Royal Mail’s “Something For You” cards referencing an attempted delivery and offering the opportunity to collect an item from the nearest Customer Service Point.